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UCPath Deployment Strategy Updated, Campus Go-Live Date Revised

April 1, 2014

The UCPath Executive Leadership Team last month approved a deployment strategy that lays out the “go-live” sequence for the Wave 1 UCPath pilot sites, which includes UC Merced.

UCPath is the University of California’s critical project to implement a single payroll, benefits, human resources and academic personnel solution for all UC employees.

Under the newly approved deployment sequence, UCOP will roll out first, followed by UC Santa Cruz and then a combined deployment at UCLA, UCLA Medical Center, UC Merced and ASUCLA. The approach being used by project leaders Mark Cianca and Sabu Varghese is typically called a “crawl, walk, run” strategy.

Crawl, Walk, Run Strategy

UCOP represents the “crawl” phase of the project because of its small population of a little more than 1,600 employees, all of them in non-academic positions. UCOP presents an additional challenge because the UCLA campus processes its payroll. As a result, some aspects of UCOP will be de-integrated from UCLA in preparation to go live.

“There are many reasons that make UCOP an ideal first site,” said Varghese. “However, it’s important to note that President Janet Napolitano specifically requested that UCOP go first. She told us that she believes in this project and wanted to demonstrate her support by having UCOP go live first.”

UCOP is scheduled to go live at the end of 2014.

Following UCOP’s implementation, UC Santa Cruz will implement UCPath as part of the “walk” phase. UC Santa Cruz represents a good second implementation because it has a relatively small employee population of approximately 2,600 staff and nearly 1,400 faculty members, ideal for the first deployment of UCPath among academic employees.

These two smaller implementations will enable the UCPath Center to gradually ramp up staffing and operations as it prepares for the “run” phase with a large multi-location group that includes a medical center.

UC Merced Launch To Follow UC Santa Cruz

Following the UC Santa Cruz implementation, UC Merced will implement UCPath concurrently with UCLA, largely because its payroll is also processed by UCLA. ASUCLA, which has its own payroll personnel system, has 2,000 employees and will also implement UCPath at the same time.

Deployment dates for the locations following UCOP will depend on the integrated work plan (IWP), which is close to completion. All UCPath project teams at all locations are developing project plans that will be linked with central team plans to create a single systemwide integrated work plan for UCPath.

Wave 2 and Wave 3 locations go live once the pilot implementations are complete.

The UCPath project management office developed a list of deployment sequence options, along with pros and cons for each, based on discussions with the Wave 1 locations. The Steering Committee reviewed the options and pros and cons and unanimously recommended this strategy, called Option 1, on March 7, followed by Executive Leadership Team approval on March 12.